LabVIEW
Critical graph scale bug in LV2009?
Put a graph or XY plot in LV2009 on Vista - and set the X scale to be in absolute time. If you do this in LV 8.6 you will now see multiple time stamps along the X axis. In LV2009 you will only get the two at each end.
Fill the graph with data...now you may get 1 extra axis point along the X axis...but never more, regardsless of the axis style, - and its position will either be in the middle or at either 25% or 75% of the full time range. (See attached picture of chart and graph).
I know this is not how things behaved before, but is it a bug? Unless I'm overlooking something it is, and it is a show stopper....I hope it's me.
If not, a fix should be sent out immediately.
In a project as big as LabVIEW bug fixes that involve changing the actual executable as opposed to changing some VI components, either in vi.lib or in one of the frameworks, is not a matter of days but more like several weeks, especially if it is something like this most likely going very deep into the operational handling of LabVIEW. This bug isn't there because of a typo but most likely because of an addition of some other code that now causes this behaviour. And simply changing it to behave as before might turn other features, specific to 2009 but also earlier ones suddenly into running havoc, so it is definitely not like changing some lines of code and then recompiling the entire thing and voila. It basically has to go through the entire regression test suit on all platforms as well as going through some serious interactive tests of many UI aspects by several guys/gals, before they can even consider wrapping everything up into a patch distribution. By that time this is done, the impationetly awaited Service pack fix for 2009 most probably is around the corner anyhow, so it will likely get wrapped into that release.
Rolf Kalbermatter
There is probably a reason that there seems no serious competition to it, and the patents are certainly not the only reason. Things like the complexity of the task together with the possible market share and revenue are at least as improtant and probably much more important.
Remember LabVIEW was in the old days the tool for NI to sell their hardware, where they made a nice profit with, but not to make money with LabVIEW itself. This is probably not as clearly the case anymore but still, I doubt you could make a profit from a LabVIEW like software only. Unless you can sell it as solution to some hardware it is likely to be a failing business.
Rolf Kalbermatter
